


Put That Away And Talk To Me

by raquetgirl



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: And Barry Loves Iris, Angst, But she's scared, F/M, Iris loves Barry, savitar looms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 13:02:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10742238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raquetgirl/pseuds/raquetgirl
Summary: Even on the bad days, Iris gets out of bed, puts on her makeup, makes coffee she can’t stomach, and goes to work or to STAR Labs and does the things she’s promised to do.





	Put That Away And Talk To Me

**Author's Note:**

> Here be angst.

She’d die before admitting it to Barry but Iris often thinks that the easiest days are the days when the impending threat of a violent death at the hands of a villain is just sort of white noise underneath everything. (She probably will die before admitting it to Barry, she also thinks.) 

That white noise, it blends into the sound of her life and with it in the background she can focus on her work, on Team Flash’s work, on her brother getting faster and her dad saving lives. In some ways those are the best days because she actually can allow herself to think: _You're going to die, Iris, but you're alive right now and, girl, your to-do list is a mile long._

On those serene days, she feels almost like herself again, teasing the interns at work, playing word games with Cisco in the cortex, calling up her best sources with friendly “I need a scoop--what do you have for me?”

And best of all, she can reach for Barry beside her at night and it feels almost exactly like it should. He is warm and solid and loves her and eternity exists in each gust of his humid breath that warms her face. Her mind lets the white noise hum a little louder because she can silence it with: _You are going to die, Iris, but who cares when there is a boy who can kiss like this?_

*******

Problem is, there are more bad days than good days now. And she hides that from Barry too, squirreling away her secret — knowing that he can’t save her — because he is stalwart and true and won’t even entertain the idea.

On those bad days, her brain slams into her heart and sends it racing with a singular thought: “You _are_ going to die Iris and nothing matters and you don’t matter and you’ll never know what you could have had because you won't exist and you might as well not exist now.”

She gets away with it because even on the bad days, Iris gets out of bed, puts on her makeup, makes coffee she can’t stomach, and goes to work or to STAR Labs and does the things she’s promised to do. And then she comes home, and pours a glass of wine she won’t drink, and stares at her computer or her tablet and sees nothing.

When Barry’s finally says something, it lands like a down pillow that explodes on contact, blanketing the room. 

“I know you think I don't know.” 

“Hmm?” Iris hears him but she’s typing at the dining table, writing a quick story on autopilot, and steadily trying to push down the panic that has been rising in her gut all day. It's been threatening to force its way out of her throat in the form of a sob or a scream or maybe just the thin yellow bile that swirls in her stomach on days like this when she can’t even _look_ at food. 

Barry rises from the sofa, and approaches her carefully, slow and heavy on his feet for someone so thin and tall and fast. “I know you're losing the battle, Iris.”

This brings her up short before the part of her brain that keeps her going can offer a reply that will mask how she's feeling. She phrases a response carefully, cautiously. “The battle with what?” 

“You’re panicking.” He rounds the table, one hand in a clenching and unclenching fist. Slowly, he drops into a seat facing her, rubs his other hand over the silky wood. 

Iris loves this table. 

_It’s a sharp flash of memory, walking through the indoor flea market with Barry a few weeks after they moved into the loft and seeing this table, groaning with other stuff on top of it. She kept watch while Barry used his speed to clear it off, and then they both stepped back, and it was what she suspected: an antique Broyhill Brasilia. She had to have it._

_“I don’t think we can afford it.” Barry had circled it all the same, inspecting the surface._

_They couldn’t, not really. But when Barry furnished the apartment, it was there, warm and gleaming. He said he’d gotten a deal. Iris looked at him suspiciously but a few weeks later found herself back at the flea market, this time solo, working on a story about a series of shoplifting incidents._

_She was at the booth that had the table but didn’t realize it until halfway through an interview about The Flash saving the day with a cheerful if slightly dopey middle-aged man with thinning hair and a thickening gut. “Oh yeah, I tried to thank the guy but said he couldn’t take money. He did ask if I’d give him a good deal on a table. I gave him a hell of a deal.”_

But even that memory can’t stem the fear inside her. Still, Iris sighs, faking exasperation and smiles the smile that always gets Joe to believe that she believes she’s okay. “Barry, I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

“You haven’t been sleeping, so that’s no surprise.” His hands reach for hers, and he nudges her laptop out of the way with his wrist. “Iris, you’re rail thin. You’re not eating, and you’re not sleeping. You’re good at pretending you’re here. But you’re not.”

She looks away, tilting her chin down.

“And you don’t look at me in the eye unless we’re—”

******

She believes he’ll do it, some days. On a day that dawns with hope, Iris wakes and stretches toward the sun and looks at her man sleeping beside her and knows, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, that Barry Allen is going to keep her alive. Iris looks at her ring and imagines hyphenating her last name and being his wife and having babies with him. 

On those hopeful mornings, Iris turns to Barry and kisses his shoulder because it’s closest. He doesn’t stir, usually, until she starts nipping at his freckled skin. He stays half asleep with a slightly dopey smile on his face until she begins to run over his torso with her hand. That’s when he unconsciously turns toward her, pink and white skin over hard planes of muscle and topped by sleepy grin, and when she survives this she should take some time to unpack her feelings for men who save people for a living. It's... a turn on.

By the time she’s kissing her way down his torso, heading straight for that gorgeous dick she loves so much, his breathing has shallowed and guttered. Then he's sighing her name in that way that goes straight to her softest, warmest places and he’s reaching for her and hauling her back up and pulling her close and rolling them over and covering her body with his and latching onto her neck with his mouth and pulling her thighs up higher and pausing to murmur “want me?” and waiting for her breathy “yes” before sliding into her where she's slick and waiting because Iris was on birth control and had decided no more condoms if she's gonna die—

(She’d said it jokingly in a moment when they were both horny and flirty and they laughed but then Barry sobered and had said very seriously _you're not gonna die, Iris_ and she’d said _Barry I just want... to feel you_ and looked at him very meaningfully and that was that).

On the hopeful mornings, the brave mornings, he's confident and strong and wild and he bites her shoulder and they wrestle for control.

And when she comes, taut and sweaty, Barry doesn't pull back to let her breathe. Instead he whispers to her _you’re so gorgeous, you feel so good. Need you, Iris_ and tells her how much he loves her. Eventually it’s just him chanting her name, over and over again, slamming into her as they lock eyes, unable to look away from each other. And if he’s diligent enough, his deep thrusts and his fingertips and his voice are enough to get her off again, and then she flops back onto the mattress, damp and boneless.

*****

“—Unless we’re what?” Her voice sounds unfamiliar to her own ears.

Barry has the sense to blush.

“I’m scared, Barry.” She hasn’t said it in a while.

“Iris, I’m going—”

“Stop. Telling. Me. You’re going to save me.” Firmly, slowly spoken. “I know that you believe that you will, and when I can believe it, I do. But there are days when I can’t and I need you to know that too.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while. 

And then: “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Iris can't possibly be okay every single day and I wanted to capture a little bit of that.


End file.
